I am a member of the Knights of Columbus. When I lived in Connecticut, I was a member of St. Mary's Church on Hillhouse Avenue in New Haven. Fr. McGivney was a parish priest there when he founded the Knights of Columbus in the basement meeting hall. The first K of C Council was San Salvador Council #1 which still exists at a different location. Within a few years after the K of C was founded, St. Mary's Church became a Dominican Church (1880s). It had been built in about 1849 and is the second oldest Catholic Church in Connecticut (to the slightly older St. Mary's Church in Windsor Locks).
When the Dominicans took over, Fr. McGivney became pastor of a parish at Thomaston, Connecticut. There he contracted tuberculosis and died of it at a relatively early age (late 30s?). Fr. McGivney's mortal remains were removed from his grave at Thomaston and entombed in a marble sarcophagus at St. Mary's Church in New Haven (left rear of the Church). The Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus is headquartered to this day in downtown New Haven and the K of C paid for a very first rate restoration (costing millions of dollars) and enhancement of St. Mary's Church at New Haven about 20 years ago.
Fr. McGivney's cause for sainthood is pending and I believe that a St. Mary's Dominican priest, Fr. Gabriel O'Donnell, is in charge of advancing that cause.
“There he contracted tuberculosis and died of it at a relatively early age (late 30s?).”
That’s about right. He died two days after his 38th birthday, the day before the Feast of the Assumption of Mary.
Vivat Jesus!
GK-Elect S/K sitetest, PGK
Father O'Donnell is the postulator for Fr. McGivney's cause, and I'm sure he's a Dominican. Whether he's on staff at St. Mary's, I don't know. He looks rather elderly in his pictures ;-).
I hate to disagree. Fr. McGivney was born and raised in Waterbury. He attended St. Paul's Church, which was later rebuilt and renamed Immaculate Conception Church. He said his first Mass as an ordained priest at Immaculate Conception in 1877. Immaculate Conception was physically moved to its current location and rebuilt a few years after his death. Immaculate Conception Church is currently petitioning the Vatican to be named a Basilica in honor of Fr. McGivney. Additionally, Fr. McGivney's original burial site was in his family's plot in Waterbury.